


Article 164.

by marnies



Category: Original Work
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Dystopian, F/F, Gen, Horror, epidemic, honestly no idea how to tag this, short fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-04-29 09:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14469879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marnies/pseuds/marnies
Summary: The following is an excerpt from Sara Muisti’s unpublished memoir, The [REDACTED] Diaries. While this title may be a manner of censorship, it’s more than likely an inside joke, functioning as a working title while the work remained unedited. Muisti died on March 19, 2038 of an unanticipated heart attack, strangely never completing another chapter, or furthering her work. The mysterious nature of this journal is its reason for being included in our collection.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So I don't typically post my original work here, but my mom keeps on nagging me to get this short story published. I'm a little insecure about it, and looking for further feedback before I do anything crazy. I'd really appreciate it if y'all gave this a read, and let me know what you think! :~)

_ The following is an excerpt from Sara Muisti’s unpublished memoir,  _ The [REDACTED] Diaries.  _ While this title may be a manner of censorship, it’s more than likely an inside joke, functioning as a working title while the work remained unedited. Muisti died on March 19, 2038 of an unanticipated heart attack, strangely never completing another chapter, or furthering her work. The mysterious nature of this journal is its reason for being included in our collection.  _

 

On August 5, 2026, my fiance of fifteen years stopped recognizing me.

I proposed to her sometime in the winter of 2011, in the middle of a ski lift. It hadn’t been my most brilliant plan; Audra had screamed so loudly they’d stopped the lift and kept it stopped for a good thirty minutes, much to the inconvenience of fifteen-or-so other riders who’d been possessed with the same ungodly inclination to go skiing first thing Tuesday morning that we had. I hadn’t cared much about those people then. I had been too surrounded by her espresso-brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, stark against the blue, snowy shadows of the woods and that god-awful lime green coat she had on. Sometimes I wonder where those people are now. Sometimes I wonder if all of this is the cruel work of karma, for that one day when we were in our twenties, when we held up that ski lift in Vermont.

The first five years after that had been hectic and perfect. We’d moved into an apartment in Northampton. I was still a barista, she still taught fifth graders, and we were still treading water financially, but something had changed. The moment I proposed to her, we had become an absolute constant in each other’s lives. I think we both needed that. It was probably why we hadn’t been in a hurry to get married; we’d known the other wasn’t going away, and that was enough.

Except she was going away. She went away on August 5, 2026, and she hasn’t come back.

I’m writing this chapter from the study of our apartment--my apartment--which is really just a corner at the edge of our kitchen counter dedicated to loose paper. It feels much bigger than it is without another warm body by my side, grading papers and humming to herself. I haven’t, and I don’t think I ever will quite get used to it--the stillness. Everything is so still. Audra was constantly moving, constantly talking, tapping her foot, singing, smiling, cracking wise, cooking, dancing, and holding my hand even when she wasn’t. I never realized how much I needed that before she stopped.

It began in the year 2023.

-I-

 

“Have you seen my keys?” Audra shouted from a few feet away. She was facing the wall, hands splayed out like she wanted the room to freeze before her, come out with it’s hands in the air, and calmly them over. Her shirt was unbuttoned. She looked like the madwoman she probably was.

I turned around, tying my uniform in the mirror. “Have you checked yesterday’s pants?”

“Yes, Sara, of course I checked yesterday’s freakin--” A pause. A rustle. “Found ‘em.”

After putting my hair up, I turned around to find her with a pair of jeans in one hand and keys in another, and kissed I her cheek. Grabbing my wallet, (which I assumed had just enough money for the bus) I reached for the door handle. She turned my head over to kiss me long and hard on the lips. Her lip gloss was fresh and sticky.

“Babe… I have to go to work.” Audra knew I couldn’t genuinely protest, grinning as hard as I was, but I tried anyway. “I gotta catch the bus, yeah?”

Audra only held up her car keys with a triumphant grin. 

“How about I drive you?”

“It’s Wednesday, idiot. You’ve got class.”

“Yeah, but it’s a field day, idiot. Alan’s got the kids ‘til twelve-thirty.” Audra turned her face to a playful pout. “Unless you don’t want me around.”

“Audra, I--”

“I could just sit around all day, in that empty classroom. Grade some papers. Maybe straighten out a few posters. Maybe I’ll have time to work in a good cry before the janitor comes in and shuts off the lights. The kids’ll walk in later and say, ‘why, Ms. Perdita, why? Why are you in the dark, sobbing on the ground?’ And I’ll have to tell them, ‘well, children; Ms. P’s fiance just doesn’t want her around anymore. Your old teach is gonna have to live on the floor and eat gross beetles from now o--’”

“Audra.” I put a finger to her lips. I was sure I’d missed the bus. “I didn’t realize you were off. Please drive me to work.”

“Anything for you, muffin.” Audra flashed a huge grin, before pushing the door open behind me. I’d been leaning on the door, and she took the opportunity of my stumble to mime catching me, and holding me like a damsel. Thus began the most important morning of either of our lives.

Audra drove me to the cafe.

“Mornin’ Mike,” I regarded my coworker. A gust of warm air hit me as I stepped foot in the cafe. I hung up my jacket before I could begin to sweat. Mike sat at the table closest to the door, as if he’d meant to switch the sign from “sorry, we’re closed,” to “come in, we’re open!” but had gotten distracted by the paper. I switched it for him.

“Mornin’ Sara,” Mike said. The smile lines around his eyes morphed when he squinted at Audra. “Who’s your friend?”

“Mornin’ Mike.” Audra slunk a lazy arm around my shoulder. “I’m Audra. Fiance.”

Mike shook her hand, and his smile lines assumed their rightful position.

“A pleasure. Morning rush has a while yet to come--your fiance would be happy to fix you breakfast.”

“Sure would.” I snuck a chaste kiss to Audra’s cheek before stepping behind the counter and slipping on my apron. “That new latte machine come in yet, Mike?”

“Oh, wouldn’t you believe it.” The old man slipped behind me to pull out the most beautiful piece of coffee-making equipment I or this cafe had ever seen. Her glittering silver trim, her blue, glowing rim around the top… She was a goddamned beauty.

“Ain’t she a goddamn beauty?”

I couldn’t get a word out before Audra snapped her fingers.

“Oh, barkeep?” she said. “I’d like a caramel latte from that machine, please. On the house, I think.”

My hands shook as I fired her up for the first time. She made a smooth whirring noise. I stocked up her never-before-touched compartment with ingredients, and she got to work. I had to sprint to catch the latte in a cup, she moved so fast. She was one of those fancy new machines that heated only using light--blue light, as it was supposed to be more eco-friendly than orange lights, or whatever. I wasn’t a science-fair winner anymore. The froth ended up in a less-than-appropriately shaped pattern, (certainly not of my active doing) making Audra snort. I loved it when she snorted. She drank.

I could almost see tumbleweeds blowing on the streets through the window across from my counter. Morning rush had a while yet to come. Mike had his nose far too deep into a newspaper for him to properly read it, as was the usual. Something was strange about his disposition this morning, though, as if something had happened that had thrown him off. I wasn’t able to put my finger on it until later. Mike was terrified.

“You girls hav-havn’--” he paused to cough, anxious. I didn’t think much of his tone. “--haven’t heard of this disease that’s been going around, have you?”

I had heard of the disease; I’d read about it in the paper that morning, before Audra had gotten out of bed. I knew I shouldn’t worry about it, and Audra had helped me to quit worrying about it once she’d gotten up and out. In fact, it slipped from my mind a little too quickly; almost as if someone had stuck a memory-eraser gun to my head. Nevertheless, something about the tragedy struck me in a way that went beyond sympathy, sticking in my diaphragm like a glob of slime. Something akin to guilt.

“I haven’t heard of it.” Audra glanced up from her drink, doe-eyed like a curious child. “Care to enlighten?”

I looked into those doe-eyes of hers, and the slime turned to melting butter. 

“I bet it was the flu,” I told her. “And it’s only ever been on the other side of the country. Probably some ranchers in Texas didn’t think to go to a doctor in time.”

Mike was about to tell me it was more than that--I knew he was. Thousands of people were vegetative for the same unknown reason, and had fallen ill quicker than anyone had seen before. Over and over again, their memory diminished and they died. But I fixed him with a glare and he shoved that liver-spotted nose of his back into the paper, where it belonged.

Audra left with the coming of the morning rush and the morning rush went with the coming of the afternoon, and pretty soon we were locking up. The paper didn’t leave my mind. 

Every copy of the  _ Daily Hampshire Gazette _ had been picked dry by the time I reached the rack.

-II-

 

The day I made Audra Perdita a caramel latte from a fancy blue machine was not the last day I’d heard what Mike’s voice sounded like brittle with horror.

“It’s fer you, Sara.”

He dropped the phone in my hand like it was at it’s melting point before taking over my job for me, avoiding eye contact all the while. I could have laughed if what waited at the other end of the phone wasn’t such a matter as it was. I put the phone to my ear.

I cannot lie--most of the conversation I’ve blotted out, losing it to the archives of my grief-stricken brain. The phone was old--probably from 2015 or 2016--with low-quality sound. Audra’s sobs came out clear above the crackle of the receiver. I think I was confused at first, remembering that Audra was supposed to be at a quick doctor’s appointment. In and out, she’d said she’d be. But instead, she was diagnosed.

_ [R E D A C T E D]. _

-III-

Only a few weeks after diagnosis, they were putting Audra in confinement. I should have expected it--after all, they knew nothing in regards to whether it was contagious or not, at what point she would 

( _ die) _

regress in health, or start experiencing more symptoms. Still, the sense of betrayal I felt driving her to that government institution, and watching her disappear behind that door was unfathomable. I could only visit her three times a month, and that was prone to change with the state of her condition.

_ Who are ‘they’ anyway?  _ I couldn’t help but think.  _ Who do ‘they’ think they are? Do ‘they’ even know what they’re doing? _

_ How,  _ I wondered,  _ if the disease is so unknown, do they know what it looks like?  _ But deep down, I knew she was sick.

With frequent visits, I began to notice things about the place, and gain understanding on where the government really stood with their research. Even on days when I couldn’t see Audra, I found myself drawn to the

_ [R E D A C T E D] _

institution. It reminded me of an insane asylum from the movies, bleak and off-white all around, except smaller and run-down. In the right wing, where I was never allowed, was a lab section where I guess they performed experiments. Sometimes I’d read a book in the lobby (or what could be considered a lobby by the standards of the building itself) and see what I could pick up from the secretary. He seemed stressed most of the time, often giving me a glare like I wasn’t supposed to be there, but wasn’t worth the trouble of kicking out. I’m not sure what interesting occasion I expected to find in that lobby, but sure enough, it came. On July 12th, 2026, the secretary left his desk for four minutes, leaving the office behind him unguarded.

I flew to the office desk and ravaged it.

Papers, files, phone numbers, folders, paper clips, sharpies, and post-it-notes flew about as I dug. I littered the meticulously vacuumed carpet. It took me almost the entire four minutes to find what I sought, wrapped up in a neat little cyan folder. It was small, I realized; too small. My suspicions were confirmed when I opened the folder to find only two, double-spaced, double sided pieces of paper. This accounted for every scrap of information on 

_ [R E D A C T E D] _

that existed. 

I tucked the folder into my jacket and walked out.

-IV-

It was a stupid idea.

I wasn’t a doctor, or a scientist. I’d done well in AP science classes back in Derry High, but I’d dropped out of med school after only a semester--too much pressure, too much terminology, too many people, and all that. I dug up my notes which proved relevant from that semester, and pinned them as neatly as I could next to rows of newspaper clippings, more stolen files from the local police department (my chum Sherry owed me one) and the two double-spaced, double-sided pages of information on

_ [R E D A C T E D]. _

I was going to save her. And I didn’t need medical knowledge, legal permission, or ‘them’ to help me. Days blurred together while I sat at that kitchen corner full of papers, and, looking back, I believe the day I had stolen the folder, I had truly, conclusively, gone insane.

But I did find something, finally, among the snippets and clippings of evidence. First off, Audra was not the first to be diagnosed after ordering from the cafe. This fact sent chills down my spine, but I couldn’t find a connection (yet), so I deemed it insignificant. It took another two victims for it to happen--both of which had died with their faces mashed against screens. They hadn’t been found in time. Digging through the records I’d become so familiar with, the fact emerged--every one of the victims had had extensive exposure to digital screens before diagnosis or death.

All of them except Audra.

That didn’t matter, I decided, because it was  _ something.  _ Maybe it was the light. Maybe it was radiation. Maybe

_ [R E D A C T E D] _

was some undiscovered type of cancer, and devices were a risk factor. Maybe they could dig out the tumor, fix the problem, or buy her a few months at least…

The path led no further.

On August 2nd, 2026, I lay my head on the desk of my study, (which was really just a corner at the edge of my kitchen counter dedicated to loose paper) and cried myself to sleep.

 

-V-

Lights.

I had a dream that night, with my head rolling in newspaper clippings, and it was about blue light. The blue light from the screen of a laptop, or a phone, or a flat screen TV. The blue light, perhaps, from an eco-friendly latte machine that had arrived at the cafe and served Audra Perdita just weeks before her diagnosis. The machine  _ I  _ had served her with.

In my dream, Audra approached.

_ Your fault, _ she told me, in a very un-Audra-like tone. She picked up a glob of green slime from the ground and shoved it down my throat. I choked.  _ I’m dead and it’s your fault. I died staring at a white ceiling in a white room on a white bed, wondering why I couldn’t remember the shape of your face. You weren’t there, Sara. You took so long. You never loved me. _

I’d poisoned her. I’d served her 

_ [R E D A C T E D] _

in a cup, and I’d put it right under her nose. Now a tumor spawned at the side of Audra’s head--a fungus, really. It grew until Audra’s skin turned sheet-white and her eyes rolled up to the back of her head. I couldn’t move. White goo dripped down by my feet.

_ What are you doing, Sara?  _ The voice deepened.  _ Help me, Sara. _

_ Help me. _

_ Help me. _

The tumor spread until I thought, deliriously, that she looked like a toadstool creature from the Mario games I loved so much as a kid. All she was missing was the diaper and the beady eyes.

_ Who are you?  _ she asked.

_ Hel-- _

I woke up alone at five in the morning.

-VI-

August 5, 2026 was not a day for visiting. They let me in, but only out of pity, and I could only look through a window. Audra seemed miles away, confined to a bed across the room from that window. I waved. She blinked.

Thirty minutes of blank staring and the doctor let me in. I reminded her of the date about a dozen times, fed her oatmeal, brushed back her hair, and tucked her in. A few times, I caught her looking at me in awe, like she’d never seen anything quite like me before. I guess in her mind, she hadn’t. They pulled me out just after recognition slipped from her eyes completely, and I knew that soon she would forget to breathe.

That was the last I saw of Audra Perdita.

  
_The [REDACTED] diaries may be the most informative article documented from the epidemic period of 2026. Had Muisti lived through her heart attack, she may still be alive today as an essential primary source. However, Audra Perdita has since been erased from record, and no proof is evident that the events in this brief work were factual. Perhaps The [REDACTED] Diaries were only a work of fiction representative of the unfathomable tragedy which surrounded the beginning of this period._ _  
_ Article 165...


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journal entry which was my original inspiration for this.

“Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is… what day is it?”

“August 5, 2026.”

“Right.”

Audra fell against the edge of her white bed with white sheets and white walls on all sides. The give of it’s mattress was at the specific, unpleasant level so that it was too soft and too firm all at once, so her back would sink into it instead of bouncing comfortably. And the sheets, of course, may as well have been made of sewn-together, bleached haystacks, digging into the opening of her gown. A greenish overhead light pierced her vision. As Audra opened her mouth to complain of all this to the woman next to her, someone cut the string between her mouth and her brain. She couldn’t recall her thought.

“Audra?”

“Yes?” That was her name. She knew that. She wore a nametag.

“What’s today’s date?”

“Aug--” 

_ Snip.  _ The sewing string snapped off again, like a stitch needled from a doll.

“August…” Audra trailed off.

“That’s okay,” said the woman. Her tone was melancholy. “Are you hungry?”

She paused. She thought so. What had she last eaten? Why was the room so bright all of a sudden? And what an unpleasant mattress. Audra nodded.

The woman stood with an encouraging smile, padding over to a tray that had appeared out of thin air. Gazing at this woman, Audra thought she was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen. Then again, when was the last time she’d seen a person? When was the last time she’d seen herself? She closed her eyes for a moment and forgot.

Audra opened her eyes. In front of her was a beautiful woman, carrying a tray of oatmeal and a banana. Her sharp blue eyes were the only splash of color in the room, save for the rosy tint Audra’s skin had turned. The woman seemed to notice her vacant, awestruck stare and frowned. She carried the tray uncertainty and placed it on Audra’s lap.

Audra forgot how to eat.

The woman caught on and guided a spoonful of oatmeal to her lips. She quietly accepted. They worked together in silence until Audra neglected to open her mouth, and the oatmeal dribbled down her chin. The woman pulled a napkin out of nowhere and mopped it with a frown. She set the meal aside.

The room had no windows, but the harsh lights dimmed to let them know it was getting late. Audra realized she was exhausted. The woman looked hesitant to leave, so instead, she spent longer than she needed tucking her into bed and putting a glass of water in her reach. Again, the glass had appeared out of nowhere. She reached for a storybook on the shelf of the bedside table before seeming to think better of it, standing and smoothing out the folds of her off-white shirt. She placed a kiss on Audra’s forehead and smoothed back her hair.

“I love you. I miss you,” she said with a wet smile.

On August 5, 2026, Audra forgot what that meant.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback? Criticism? Too wordy or confusing? Please let me know!


End file.
